Clin­ton names Vir­ginia Se­na­tor as run­ning mate

Hil­lary Clin­ton has named Vir­ginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her vi­cepres­i­den­tial run­ning mate, adding a cen­trist for­mer gov­er­nor of a cru­cial bat­tle­ground state to the Demo­cratic ticket.

In a text mes­sage to sup­port­ers late Fri­day night, the pre­sump­tive Demo­cratic nom­i­nee said, “I’m thrilled to tell you this first: I’ve cho­sen Sen. Tim Kaine as my run­ning mate.”

On Twit­ter a few sec­onds later, Clin­ton de­scribed Kaine as “a man who’s de­voted his life to fight­ing for oth­ers.” She called him “a re­lent­less op­ti­mist who be­lieves no prob­lem is un­solv­able if you put in the work to solve it.”

Kaine, 58, had long been a favourite for Clin­ton’s ticket. Flu­ent in Span­ish and ac­tive in the Se­nate on for­eign re­la­tions and mil­i­tary affairs, he built a rep­u­ta­tion for work­ing across the aisle as Vir­ginia’s gov­er­nor and as mayor of Rich­mond.

Ear­lier in Florida, Clin­ton picked apart and sharply crit­i­cized Don­ald Trump’s con­ven­tion speech, which she said put his “dark and di­vi­sive vi­sion” for the coun­try on full dis­play.

Clin­ton noted that con­ven­tion speaker af­ter con­ven­tion speaker fix­ated on her, which she called “per­versely flat­ter­ing.”

And she said it was Repub­li­can Sen. Ted Cruz who said it best in his con­ven­tion speech on Wed­nes­day night: “Vote your con­science.” She found it ter­ri­ble he was booed.